Can't run multiple VMs on Mac Pro with 16GB RAM!

O

Obsidian

Bit poster
I have a new 8 core Mac Pro with 16 GB of RAM and planned to run multiple VMs at once under Parallels 3.0 but this has proven to be impossible so far. I can open and run one VM just fine but when I try to start another VM I get the following error "Paralles Desktop failed to allocate the specified amount of memory. Please restart Parallels Desktop and try again. To avoid this problem in the future choose from the menu: Paralles Desktop > Preferences. On the Memory tab select the Enable virtual memory preallocation option." I did as the error message said but the same thing happens.

Anyone know a fix for this?
 

Attachments

  • parallels error copy.jpg
    parallels error copy.jpg
    86.7 KB · Views: 13
  • ram screenshot.jpg
    ram screenshot.jpg
    56.4 KB · Views: 15
I have a MacPro - a far more modest beats with four cores and 4 GBytes, But I can run two VMs (XP and Linux/Centos) with no problems.

Have you rebooted since installing Parallels 3? I had a memory message the first time I launched v3 after upgrading, but it also advised a Plan B - reboot the Mac. I did, and it worked after that.
 
Obsidian said:
"Paralles Desktop failed to allocate the specified amount of memory. Please restart Parallels Desktop and try again. To avoid this problem in the future choose from the menu: Paralles Desktop > Preferences. On the Memory tab select the Enable virtual memory preallocation option."
Click to expand...

The message says 'specified amount of memory'.

How much memory is specified for each of the vms that you're trying to run?
 
I am only assigning 1.5 GB per machine with 64MB VRAM. This was never a problem on my other 4 Core Mac Pro with 12GB of RAM running Parallels Desktop version 2.x. Something in 3 is different... not sure what but I can't run a second VM now.
 
Obsidian said:
I am only assigning 1.5 GB per machine with 64MB VRAM. This was never a problem on my other 4 Core Mac Pro with 12GB of RAM running Parallels Desktop version 2.x. Something in 3 is different... not sure what but I can't run a second VM now.
Click to expand...

In PD Preferences under the Memory Tab, is that set to adjust automatically? Remember that this setting is the total amount of memory available to all running vms.
 
I'm having the same problem on my 8 core Mac Pro with 16 GB of RAM. I was starting to think I was having memory or hard drive problems. I moved the virtual machine to another drive and have ran "Remember" but can't find anything wrong. If the machine does start it will crash after 30 minutes or so and I'll get a MacFUSE File System not responding message.

Windows 2003 is the guest OS with 1.2 GB of RAM and 64 MB of VRAM. I've tried setting the memory settings to manual with 6 GB of RAM, automatic and checked and unchecked the preallocate button.
 
This isn't a new problem. I've reported it several times, to deafening silence from support.

In my case, I have a 4 core system with 16GB of RAM. The trick seems to be in setting all the VMs that you want to run to a memory setting less than 1GB each... and even then (with a setting of 768MB), I can only seem to run 3 of them simultaneously.

If it wasn't for this, I'd be 100% satisfied with Parallels. As it is, I'm still fairly happy -- but it does cause me to grumble a bit... and the total lack of response from support is inexcusable.
 
Got two replies from Parallels support:

"Hello, Tim.
Thank you for contacting Parallels support.

We aware of such problems with 8 core computers, but unfortunately we
didn't test it yet. "

and...

"Hello!

We are working on it right now. And very likely this issue will be
resolved in our next Parallels update as soon as possible.

Best regards, Sam."

So they seem to know about it and acknowledge it. I hope this problem gets solved soon as it is hindering my ability to get work done in a timely and efficient way...
 
Just to be clear, I have tried every possible memory configuration short of dropping my VMs below 1GB of RAM each... this is a huge bug in PD 3.0
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top